Everything's a Project

Everything's a Project.... That's not only a great name for a book--which it is--but it's also a great way to look at many things at work and in life. Looking for a job? It's a project. Need to create a report for your boss? It's likely a project. Looking for ways to develop your skills? You guessed it--your personal development is a project.

Now, of course, not everything is a project. But most leaders would benefit if we thought of our work as projects and applied lessons that we've learned from the world of project management.

Free Premium Episode

I am immensely thankful for the many people who are premium subscribers to the People and Projects Podcast. By making this investment in their personal development, they receive extra episodes for additional insights into the topics covered by our free episodes. In addition, this investment helps cover part of our costs for our free episodes. So here's a big thank you to our Premium Subscribers!

To give you an idea of what Premium Subscribers get with each episode, I'm including this Premium episode in the free podcast stream. If you'd like to get these additional episodes each month to further your application of the material, please go to http://bit.ly/PremiumSubscribe to learn more.

Follow-Up to the Tom DeMarco Interview

I trust you had the opportunity to listen to both episodes of my interview with Tom DeMarco. He's a guy who has uniquely impacted the world of projects, and it was certainly a pleasure for me to talk with him. His books are insightful, practical, and even a bit a quirky (in a good way) at times. But I'm confident that if you're in the software development side of project management or leadership, you'll get value from his books.

In this premium episode, I follow-up on some issues that Tom and I touched on that are relevant whether or not your projects are related to software development. Tom's ideas truly span further than that domain. I cover topics such as:

The myth of "The more pressure, the better"

Why having only a 50%-70% likelihood of success could be a good thing

Why stressed brains do not learn the same way as non-stressed brains

Where the line crosses between stress being a good thing and it becoming a dangerous thing

The Deadline

In this episode I continue my discussion with Tom DeMarco, with insights related to his writing in books such as The Deadline. If you didn't listen to the first part of my interview with Tom, I recommend you listen to that one before continuing. In this episode Tom addresses topics such as knowing what we don’t know, dealing with jerk bosses, and what he writes and speaks about but has trouble doing himself. Make sure to stay tuned after the interview for a very transparent story from Tom about his career.

The Deadline

A couple months back I was teaching a PMP®Exam Prep workshop. One of the participants mentioned that he was reading Tom DeMarco's book entitled The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management. It's a book that I had wanted to read many times since it was originally published in the late 1990's but it never bubbled up to the top of my book list. But when this workshop participant continued to rave about the book, it ended up on my iPad Kindle Reader before the day was done. And in the coming days I couldn't put the book down.

If you're not in the software side of project management or leadership, you might not have heard of Tom DeMarco before. But if you do work on that side of the house, Tom DeMarco has likely impacted you and your job more than you know. He's been a leading thinker and practitioner in this space for decades, and in the next two episodes, you have a great opportunity to hear from this industry giant. Even if you're not in the software development arena, you'll get some practical insights from this exceptionally insightful thinker on how to deliver your projects and lead teams.

More Tom DeMarco

To get your copy of The Deadline, click here Join us in the next episode when Tom will address topics such as knowing what we don't know, dealing with jerk bosses, and what he writes and speaks about but has trouble doing himself.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Have a great week!